e before she had finished copying
them. And yet for a whole afternoon she worked enthusiastically at
a fantastic design of dream flowers, an extraordinary efflorescence
blooming in the light of a miraculous sun, a burst of golden
spike-shaped rays in the center of large purple corollas, resembling
open hearts, whence shot, for pistils, a shower of stars, myriads of
worlds streaming into the sky, like a milky way.

"Ah, my poor girl," said the doctor to her on this day, "how can you
lose your time in such conceits! And I waiting for the copy of those
mallows that you have left to die there. And you will make yourself ill.
There is no health, nor beauty, even, possible outside reality."

Often now she did not answer, intrenching herself behind her fierce
convictions, not wishing to dispute. But doubtless he had this time
touched her beliefs to the quick.

"There is no reality," she answered sharply.

The doctor, amused by this bold philosophy from this big child, laughed.

"Yes, I know," he said; "our senses are fallible. We know this world
only through our senses, consequently it is possible that the world
does not exist. Let us open the door to madness, then; let us accept
as possible the most absurd chimeras, let us live in the realm of
nightmare, outside of laws and facts. For do you not see that there is
no longer any law if you suppress nature, and that the only thing that
gives life any interest is to believe in life, to love it, and to put
all the forces of our intelligence to the better understanding of it?"

She made a gesture of mingled indifference and bravado, and the
conversation dropped. Now she was laying large strokes of blue crayon
on the pastel, bringing out its flaming splendor in strong relief on the
background of a clear summer night.

But two days later, in consequence of a fresh discussion, matters went
still further amiss. In the evening, on leaving the table, Pascal went
up to the study to write, while she remained out of doors, sitting on
the terrace. Hours passed by, and he was surprised and uneasy, when
midnight struck, that he had not yet heard her return to her room. She
would have had to pass through the study, and he was very certain that
she had not passed unnoticed by him. Going downstairs, he found that
Martine was asleep; the vestibule door was not locked, and Clotilde
must have remained outside, oblivious of the flight of time. This often
happened to her on these warm nights, b